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Topic: John A. Davison: A Prescribed Evolutionary Hypothesis
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KBC1963
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Member # 1868
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posted 26. January 2006 21:24
Hi again Cris and john,
Chris you ask "Is it possible that you could elaborate for us your disquiet about the PEH?"
I can certainly elaborate;
One of the first things that rings untrue to me For PEH is that there are three basic food chains that would have to be started one on land and one in the oceans and one in fresh water. Each of these would be of the photosynthetic variety in each case and assuming that they came through one injection doesnt make alot of mechanical sense to me as there would need to come a time when one food chain punctuated up to ever higher levels it would then need to devolve in order to start another different chain and punctuate up.
The second part that is tuff to accept is to punctuate up to something that is totally different in needs from what would be a lower level parent and assume that the parent could correctly care for the young of a completely new type which as anyone can see have different needs and requirements as well as instincts. We can see empirically that each separate kind or type has their own unique and perfect instinct to match their mechanics.
There are also balances that must be kept in nature and by stepping in one type at a time I believe would be an exercise in unbalanced building, imagine for instance ants without a predator to keep them in check. I observe in all things balance of design and operation and I find it easy to infer that same balance in the global system.
These are things off the top of my head but I am sure that if we each consider these things for a time we would draw the same conclusion and just as we now see the truth of irreducible complexity within ourselves so also should we see the same pattern in all systems originated by the intelligent designer. even the simplest cell screams at at us to recognize that it is irreducibly complex and could not have sustained without coming into existence all at once with all minimum functions working, try if you can to visualize the cell being built piecemeal? the lipid barrier would have to be first otherwise the law of mass action would tear what would be the cellular guts apart and once the lipid barrier exists how could it survive without all its minimum subsystems there as well to allow for it to replicate? The greatest revelation that occured to me long ago was that all things that exist do so within ever increasing or decreasing system sizes system within system ad infinitum this indeed is complexity on a scale that truely makes one stand in awe when viewed from our perspective. Agrand orchestra free to the intelligent public.
I do believe that we are in a state of devolving in that mutations are breaking down the genomic information however this would be true whether it was PEH or special creation of each saltation.
The fourth law is definite as I have no illusion that chance can build up anything.. I lived in Las Vegas for 10 years designing casino's and orther fun stuff and they are sure to let you know of any winners that happen there in order to let you think that you have a chance of winning but if the truth be told there are no consistent winners they have set the odds to just less than 10% in their favor and they are raking in enough money to pay every residents Nevada State tax every year and still have tons of profit to show. now imagine if the odds were a whole lot closer to the odds found in naturalism, hehehe they would be the only winners and it would soon become a ghost town for need of a winner at their tables.
I do not have any critique of your diagram at this point as I need to get a better grip on its ins and outs first.
Chris you said "And so it goes on - until all is ripe for Man's entry (possibly the homo genus) on the scene." what if man was around with the trilobites? http://paleo.cc/paluxy/meister.htm
I got to see this up close and personal and it is even more impressive, but I can't empirically prove this single fossil is evidence however when I visited pauluxy it was equally impressive showing dinosaur and human prints together. so I will at this time reserve the idea that man came on the scene last untill there is better evidence to support one idea or another.
I believe there is a law of form mechanically that we have yet to entirely get a conclusive pillar made from yet, the gist of this pillar or law is that complex mechanical and biological systems cannot be changed in part randomely without losing selection advantage which would eliminate chance altogether from evolutions arguement and effectively leave ID as its only possible constructor of stepped levels of complexity.
Well I have babbled enough, hope this lets you see my position and why.
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John A. Davison
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posted 27. January 2006 05:31
I have repeatedly challenged the evolutionists to produce a younger genus than Homo and a younger mammalian species than Homo sapiens. Until that challenge has been met we can safely assume the we are indeed the youngest mammal on planet earth. I am also equally confident that we are the last mammal species ever to be produced. You see, evolution is quite finished and blindly to claim otherwise is without foundation. To do so is to ignore an enormous literature indicating that, like ontogeny, phylogeny has also been self-imiting and self-terminating. Science proceeds on what can be demonstrated not on the basis of what might be or might have been.
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John A. Davison
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posted 27. January 2006 05:40
To imagine that man coexisted with either trilobites or dinosaurs flies in the face of everything we know from the fossil record. There is no evidence that Homo sapiens is more than a mere 100,000 years old and very little that he is even that old. If there is I want to know where I can find it.
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KBC1963
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Member # 1868
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posted 28. January 2006 00:47
Late last month, the journal Nature announced the discovery of 700,000-year-old stone tools in Suffolk - pushing back the date of arrival of early humans in northern Europe by 200,000 years.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,3605,1680443,00.html
Alleged footprints of early Americans found in volcanic rock in Mexico are either extremely old - more than 1 million years older than other evidence of human presence in the Western Hemisphere - or not footprints at all, according to a new analysis published this week in Nature.
http://forums.hypography.com/general-science-news/4648-alleged-40-000-year-old-human.html
Paleontologists claim 350,000-year-old find in Spanish cave pushes back boundary of early human evolution
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,871235,00.html
Ancient skull challenges human origins
Fossil said to be more than 6 million years old
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/TECH/science/07/10/ancient.skull/
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John A. Davison
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posted 28. January 2006 03:22
Sorry, I don't buy it. Man wasn't even in the new world until 25,000 years ago. Reports of simulateneous dinosaur and human footprints abound in the Creationist literature. They are fantasies I am certain. By man I mean of course Homo sapiens, not Homo erectus or some other member of the genus.
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KBC1963
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Member # 1868
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posted 28. January 2006 12:42
John,
It is my view that anything that had the form of man in the past was not in fact a predecessor but rather just racially different in the same way there are thousands of dog types that are all contemporary. The assumption that mans intelligence evolved is as flawed as the assumption that man evolved.
So when they can show evidence of tools or intelligent design in the fossil record then we must pay attention as these are signs of mans presence. This site and the idea's behind it help us to identify those things that cannot be attributed to random chance because of highly specified information contained within an item, so before we can dismiss something such as tools from consideration we should apply this method to them and as a good scientist follow where the evidence leads otherwise we become biased and leave the realm of science.
I do my best not to skew empirical evidence in anyway and let it define the truth, so if there is evidence of intelligently designed tools that have been dated at 700k to 1 million years old then I know that man was there.
The only disagreement we have on the subject of origins john is in its execution, the underlying principle that it wasn't random is without question. I do believe that system groups may have been formed at differing times, I just don't believe that each separate creature type came about separate. Man may indeed have been the last to come into existence because we are not truly a needed part of any chain, our existence could easily be removed from this system and all existing food chains would be unaffected.
The one thing that I think you should consider is balance, it is an empirical observable fact in all living systems and to me it is the hallmark of the intelligent designer. I am firmly convinced that randomness could not acheive perfect balance of a system much less a system within a system within a system all balance among themselves, so when I look to see the truth of a theory I look for this same balance of design and action and I question anything that doesn't seem to posess this.
Might I promote that balance is the fourth dimension or another form of complexity and that this could be a testable, falsifible & scientific measure of intelligence.
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John A. Davison
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posted 28. January 2006 19:34
You will have to excuse me but I am just a poor bench scientist and quite frankly and honestly I really don't understand what you are trying to tell me. I just don't get it. Sorry.
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KBC1963
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Member # 1868
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posted 28. January 2006 23:16
John,
What im trying to get across is that balance is not a natural thing. When we look at cells we take for granted the balance of operation within the system, all things give and take at just the right rates. suppose for instance mutation occurs that develops a new component within a system and its requirement to exist and participate are more than the openings in the cell can supply this would be an unbalanced system. We see the same balance in the multitude of systems within our own internal system such as the glandular control of other systems or the waste management system, for instance how did the kidneys know to mutate to a size that would allow it to eliminate the waste of a system our size? each of our subsystems are shaped and orchestrated to a level of balance far beyond randomness to acheive.
I have merely pointed out that this same balance also must be in place when you consider the creatures that exist within the world.
When you say that each creature occured at different times then each new top creature in a food chain will grow unchecked and we would see a very graduated chain of creation within the fossil record.
The fossil record however has highly evolved species appearing at the same time frame which shows that the better logic defined by the evidence to be that entire groups were introduced all at once which also logically implies a balanced system.
one of the things we see in our world today is how easily we can upset the balance of nature by killing to many of a specific specie which allows another specie just below it in the food chain to grow unchecked and the one above it in the chain to starve to death. This concept should be understandable by everyone as its in the news enough for all to be familiar with it.
John if you had a problem with my reference to the tools that are dated at 700,000 years old, who do you suppose made the tools or do you suppose they formed naturally?.
[ 28. January 2006, 23:20: Message edited by: KBC1963 ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 29. January 2006 01:08
Oh sure tools might be made by a member of the genus Homo 700,000 years ago but Homo sapiens could not have been the species that made them because we had not already appeared on the scene. That is the only point I was trying to make. It might have been Homo erectus or Homo habilis but it sure wasn't Homo sapiens.
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KBC1963
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posted 29. January 2006 09:25
Ok John,
Now I see your reasoning. You assume the classification of man shows evolutionary separation over time, this is where we diverge in our interpretation of the fossil record. I don't believe that there is any difference between homo erectus and homo sapiens. I see the differences being more racial differences meaning that what we call homo erectus is really just a vriation of homo sapien much like a golden retreiver is another genetic varient of a labrador retriever but still both dogs. If we look around today we could find humans that posess the same qualities found in homo erectus. Evolutionist see graduation of species where I only see variation within the limits of a species blueprint preprogrammed into the specie.
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John A. Davison
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posted 29. January 2006 10:27
We are poles apart and I see no reason to continue in what is obviously a fruitless venture. Just pretend I do not exist. That is what the Darwinians have been doing with me and my sources for a very long time. It greatly simplifies things for them and will for you too I am sure. I am a published scientist and I recommend you refer to my published views. They do not require amplification until they have been at least read and digested.
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Christopher D. Beling
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Member # 723
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posted 31. January 2006 00:22
Sorry to see communications have stopped here. KBC and John - I think you have much in common but are just misunderstanding each other.
I would like to make a few comments on the HOMO GENUS and NEANDERTHAL. I know these are very difficult areas of scientific endeavor and nothing can be said dogmatically. However I think over the last decade things have become a little clearer - and I would just like to point to a few things that I am aware of and ask for comments:
1) HOMO GENUS. Casey Luskin has written a beautiful and what I would call scholarly and illumining article Human Origins and Intelligent Design in the ISCID archives. I strongly recommend reading this. It stresses the strong taxonomic differences between the homo-genus (incl: erectus, neanderthalensis and erectus) and the Australopithecus-genus (robustus, boisei, africanus and habilis). Yes, John, strong arguments are indeed presented the habilis belongs with the Australopitheci. The article suggests that the differences between homo and australopithecus are so large that intelligent design has to be in some way a causation.
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One might conclude that from the ID perspective, the "big bang" of Homo represents the exact kind of discontinuous, mass-infusion of genetic information in the biosphere expected if the genus Homo was intelligently designed apart from relation to Australopithecus
Actually such an "infusion of genetic info" is indicated on my diagram a few posts back. This is thus (if true) more consistent with a "multiple shot" PEH - which may not please you John (sorry if it doesn't - but I believe you are compliable with the multiple shot possibility).
2) NEANDERTHAL - COULD MOST LIKELY COULD NOT CRY
Schwartz and Tattersall in their 1996 paper on unrecognized apomorphies in the nasal region of Homo Neanderthalensis suggest such differences in the lacrimal groove that Neanderthal could probably not cry (like modern humans) and thus may have had a more restricted emotional responses. [Would appreciate you more biological guys reading this paper and giving your opinion on this]
3) NEANDERTHAL WAS MOST LIKELY A DIFFERENT SPECIES TO MODERN MAN BASED ON DNA STUDIES
KBC - your posts suggest that you believe that Neanderthal was just a variation of the species homo (rather than a separate species within the homo genus). I think the proponderence of DNA evidence is suggesting that Neanderthal was really a different species and not just a variation (i.e. sub-species). There have been a number of studies of mitochondrial DNA taken from Neanderthals. The first was Matthias Krings et al in their 1997 paper Neandertal DNA sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans where they point the large difference between the mtDNA sequences and make the suggestion:
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that Neandertals went extinct without contributing mtDNA to modern humans
A more recent study of Neanderthal mtDNA by Ovchinnikov et al Molecular analysis of Neanderthal DNA from the northern Caucasus that finds a mtDNA sequence specific to Neandertal concludes that
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Phylogenetic analysis places the two Neanderthals from Caucasus and western Germany together in a clade that is distinct from modern humans, suggesting that their mtDNA types have not contributed to the modern human mtDNA pool.
and places the time of divergence between Neanderthal and Modern Man as 365,000 to 853,000 years ago. This presents a very interesting problem since most evidences place the origin of Homo Sapiens (modern man) around 40,000 years ago
4) NEANDERTHAL AND OTHER HOMOS WERE CF HOMO SAPIENS TECHNICALLY AND CULTURALLY UNSOPHISTICATED
The recent paper by J. Hallos [Journal of Human Evolution vol 49 (2005) pp155-179] talks about the lack of technical sophistication in tool making of homo species in the middle pleistocene era (i.e. 100,000 - 700,000 years ago, covering Homo Erectus, Archaic Homo Sapiens (?) and Homo Neanderthalensis).
The recent book by Richard Klein and Blake Edgar The Dawn of human culture: a bold new theory of what sparked the "Big Bang" of human consciousness talks about the amazing cultural, artistic, technological and religious "big bang" that took place around 30,000 - 40,000 years ago when Homo-Sapiens came on the scene (and Neanderthal left).
I am hoping that the above information will stimulate some more informed discussions. Particularly we (together with other willing isciders) should discuss whether the PEH could explain the Australopithecus to Homo genus transition, and the much more controversial Homo-Neanderthalensis to Homo-Sapiens transition (if it ever occured - the text books tend to favor an Archaic Homo-Sapiens to Modern Homo-Sapiens transition but is this on good evidence?). These are most interesting and important questions. - Chris
[ 31. January 2006, 04:43: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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John A. Davison
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posted 31. January 2006 07:54
Thank you Chris.
I can't do much with this right now as I have to leave but I don't like the idea of infusions at all. That smacks of thesitic intervention which I can't buy. I prefer the view that the information was alays there in latent form and was simply unmasked or derepressed at each saltational step. Those sgeps were the steps in which the chromosmes underwent their paired reorganizations. Each species in those transformations was discrete and drastically and obviously different from the parent that produced it. There were apparently about 12 such steps that have separated us from chimps and somewhat more from the gorilla and orang utan. I also believe that Homo sapiens was at his instantaeous inception identical with modern man except for the genetic degeneration that has reduced us somewhat. With Otto Schndewolf I do not believe there were any gradual transfomations in any paleontological series. Neither do I believe that Mendelian allelomorphic mutations had any role either. The Darwinian notion of gradualism is a myth without foundation. All of Darwinism is a myth. Natural Selection is and was entirely conservative, preventing change, never creating it. The environment never played any role in evolution just as it still plays no role whatsoever in ontogeny and for the same reason. Both ontogeny and phylogeny were driven entirely from within by forces yet to be identified.
"Neither in the one nor in the other is there room for chance."
Leo Berg, Nomogenesis, page 134
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Christopher D. Beling
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posted 31. January 2006 11:02
Thanks John, It would be great to hear your views sometime on the above references and how the PEH might be established in the case of human origins.
quote:
I don't like the idea of infusions at all. That smacks of thesitic intervention which I can't buy. I prefer the view that the information was always there in latent form and was simply unmasked or derepressed at each saltational step.
From this I understand that you don't much like the idea of even a "single shot" infusion? (i.e. that is the Red line on my diagram). I understand that you have some adversion to multiple infusions. I wonder if this is just because you do not like the concept of theistic intervention - or is it more because of the direct analogy you draw of phylogeny following ontogeny and because the latter starts with only a single zygote. Or is it both of these?
When you say "the information was always there" I wonder exactly what you mean - do you mean from the origin of life or the origin of the universe or something else? Sorry to push you - Chris
[ 31. January 2006, 11:23: Message edited by: Christopher D. Beling ]
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